The Black Woman Who Was Executed For Killing Her Employer
She was granted a posthumous pardon sixty years after her execution
Lena Baker was an African American woman who was executed by the State of Georgia because she killed her employer, Ernest Knight in 1944. Her execution took place in Reidsville at the Georgia State Prison.
Baker was born in 1900 into a family of farmers and was raised near Cuthbert, Georgia. She worked as a maid and had three children. Baker started working with Knight after he broke his leg during a fall. He hired her to nurse him until his leg healed. Shortly after, the two started a love affair. He was 23 years older than her.
Knight was a heavy drinker who always had a gun strapped to his shoulder. Some accounts have reported that when Baker tried to end the relationship with him, he locked her in a mill and kept her as his “slave woman”. In an unfortunate turn of events, Knight died after engaging in a tussle with Baker.
Baker admitted that she was held against her will
After Knight died, Baker was charged with capital murder. During trial, she revealed that 67-year-old Knight whom she had been hired to cater for, had forcefully invited her to the millhouse and locked her there. She recounted that…
